Scottie Pippen slams Miami Heat's 'record' outlook

February 11, 2011|By Ira Winderman, South Florida Sun Sentinel

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Having taken umbrage in the offseason with those who viewed the revamped Miami Heat as a challenger to the 72-10 all-time best record his 1995-96 Chicago Bulls compiled, Scottie Pippen continued the theme in a recent interview with Slam magazine.

The former Bulls forward and long-time South Florida resident, in fact, referred to the current Heat as a team with 2 1/2 stars, noting, "I don't think Chris Bosh is half the player of LeBron James."

Instead of challenging for the NBA record, Pippen said of the current Heat, "There's no way those guys are gonna break any type of record. I don't think they can break the franchise record in Miami, or the state of Florida, I should say."

The Heat's best season was 61-21 in 1996-97. The Orlando Magic's best was 60-22 in 1995-96. The Heat went into Friday night's game against the Detroit Pistons at 38-14, with 30 regular-season games remaining.

Asked if the Heat could be a more legitimate threat for such records next season, once Dwyane Wade, James and Bosh have had a full season together, Pippen said, "There's a lot of other teams out there right now that look a lot better than the Miami Heat, and I would much rather be elaborating on them breaking the record than Miami, because they're nowhere near it.

"They haven't even won the most games in the state of Florida, as I said. That record is far out of their reach. They need to break the Miami Heat franchise win record, then we can start to, at least, sit down and talk."

Ira Winderman can be reached at iwinderman@SunSentinel.com and can be followed at http://twitter.com/iraheatbeat.